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From: Laura Carlson
Subject: Re: headers attribute (was Re: Form elements)
To: "Patrick H. Lauke" , public-html@w3.org
On 5/30/07, Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk> wrote:
> In that case, I wonder: why do we actually have the "headers attribute
> in tables" debate? Current screen readers (assuming that you generally
> meant "user agents" when saying "browsers") support them and use them.
> Not including them in the spec would result in breakage - unless we're
> hoping that any heuristics that were defined to compensate for the
> removal of headers will still be able to silently extract the same
> information from the table while ignoring the headers themselves and
> treating them as invalid code?
It seems to fit under "Degrade Gracefully" in the HTML Working Grou's
proposed design principles [1].
> Still, like Ben Boyle, I wonder if headers can be kept, even if scope
> should be promoted. Would headers create any problems for the new
> scope algoritm, for instance? Could headers' role be limited - to thos
> things scope can't handle?
I wonder that too. Why can't scope be promoted and headers be
_gracefully_ degraded? Why not give AT a chance to catch up?
Also it looks like id/headers would fall under "Universal Access"
principle which says:
"Design features for universal access. This does not mean that
features should be omitted entirely if not all users can fully make
use of them, but alternate mechanisms should be provided when
possible."
Laura
[1] http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ProposedDesignPrinciples
Laura L. Carlson
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/
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